It's Getting Bigger

Last time, I wrote about the new bug with the Standard Pauper filter on Magic Online that now allows any Uncommon currently in Standard that was once printed at Common into matches. Obviously this would have a big impact on the metagame going forward.

As it turns out, it wasn't just the Standard Pauper filter that was bugged...

While the community has gotten reassurances that the Magic Online team is aware of these issues, thus far there is no word on what the problem is or when it will be fixed...

As far as MPDC is concerned, until the problem is resolved, there seems to be three options:

1. Simply go with the filter as is. The "Uncommon-Commons" would now be allowed into the format. 
2. Continue with the rules as they are. This means that despite the fact that players will technically be able to enter a match with illegal cards, once they are discovered, that player will receive a match-loss.
3. Change the way registration works such that Gatherling enforces the rarity restrictions rather than Magic Online.

This is a big issue, and I appreciate all those who have commented thus far. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

•  Looking at the list of Commons that would be added to the format, only Arc Lightning, Gravedigger and Stab Wound would see widespread play with the potential to disrupt the format in an unhealthy way. The rest of the cards might find a home in particular archetypes, but aren't really broken or overpowered. But Gravedigger in particular is a strong card with no real answers in the format. Of course, the same might be said for Font of Return.
• Having new players enter what they believe is a legal deck, only to be disqualified due to a bug with Magic Online, seems like a good way not to keep new players. While MPDC worked this way for a long time, I have no doubt it hurt the growth of our player base. And having a filter that doesn't work properly only makes the problem worse, since the new players would have every right to believe that their deck was in fact legal.
• The third solution seems like a good idea, but in fact Gatherling doesn't actually work that way, at least not the version we use on pdcmagic.com. Even if you force players to enter a decklist to register, they can still just enter nonsense characters into the decklist and bypass that restriction. And it certainly doesn't tell a player that a card entered isn't legal for a particular format. So if we wanted to go down this road, we would have to switch over to the software at Gatherling.com, essentially leaving pdcmagic altogether.

Hopefully this will all be a moot point. The Magic Online team is aware of the issue, and one can hope the problem will be resolved before the next season of MPDC starts. We shall see.